


What a Lovely Way to Burn

by Devilc



Category: Strike Back
Genre: Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/pseuds/Devilc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was going to be one hell of a debrief when they got out of here.  Locke had sent them back into South America knowing it was going to be a goat rodeo, but nobody had expected this level of colossal cluster fuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Lovely Way to Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PR Zed (przed)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/gifts).



> The Prompt was:  
>  _A series that hits my competency kink. I love the professionalism that Scott, Stonebridge and the whole team bring to their assignments. I love the connection between Scott and Stonebridge, and the way they react when one of them is injured. I'd love some hurt/comfort, especially if it's Scott looking after Stonebridge. (I love the way the big lunkhead reacts when Stonebridge is in danger.) I'm okay with gen, but would also love to see slash. Maybe have them confined somewhere waiting, with Scott having no one but Stonebridge to expend his sexual energy on. I also love the women of Section 20, especially Richmond, and would love to see her involved in any story._
> 
> I had a blast working on this prompt, which is also an extremely minor crossover with my other favorite espionage-thriller series, Homeland. It's set sometime after the end of Strike Back: Shadow Warfare and before the start of Homeland Season 4.
> 
> Title comes from the classic song "Fever", which I listened to quite a bit while writing this story.
> 
> Strike Back and Homeland are copyright their respective owners. This is a bit of whatiffery written for a gift exchange.

* * *

If nothing else, the place had a million dollar view, plenty of fresh air, too. If nothing else …. Damien shook his head and sighed, at least the glass in the frame was intact. Floor to ceiling nothing this high up would have completed the effect, making it just like that creepy mountain top castle with the bratty kid in Game of Thrones.

He said so to Mikey who grumbled, back, "We're in protective custody, not prison, you berk."

Damien smiled before turning to face Stonebridge. "There's a difference?" he asked in his blandest voice as he gestured at their surroundings. Instead of turning back to the window, he made himself take a mental snapshot, catalog it, and compare it to the previous snapshot, checking for differences.

Stonebridge in a wifebeater and boxer briefs on a ratty and stained mattress that should've been dumped in a landfill some time last decade. The sheets beneath him wash grey, but clean. The wall behind him half sheetrock, half cinder block. Damien sucked in a breath and made himself continue the inventory. Stonebridge pale and grey beneath his tan, the sheen of sweat on forehead might be the start of a fever, or it just could be the fact that Caracas was muggy as fuck. The bandage over the bullet hole just above his hip still clean and white.

(At least it was just a flesh wound, not a vital organ. Not that there hadn't been blood all over Damien's hands and clothes as he and one of the vatos more or less hauled Stonebridge up some 20 flights of stairs in the middle of the night. The doctor that El Niño produced, Dr. Graham, gave Damien the creeping willies, but he'd certainly known his stuff -- whatever kind of doc he'd been _before_ , life here had given him a crash-course in no-questions-asked emergency medicine.)

Michael muttered something, snapping Damien back to the present. "What?"

"I said," Michael repeated, a decidedly cranky edge to his voice, "that prison is one word and protective custody is two."

Damien nodded, "Whatever you say, Snarkbridge," turned back to the view of downtown Caracas, and watched the clouds roll in.

~oo(0)oo~

Damien sat down with his back to the wall, crossed his arms on top of his knees, and buried his head against them. There was going to be one hell of a debrief when they got out of here. Locke had sent them back into South America knowing it was going to be a goat rodeo, but nobody had expected this level of colossal cluster fuck.

Long story short -- it looked like El Avispón, the asshole who'd picked up Jaguar's part of the cocaine trade, was also getting into bed with terrorists, and not the local narco-terrorists who'd been fucking shit up for the past three generations in Colombia and Venezuela, but folks Her Majesty's Government actually cared about. The mission was meant to be reconnaissance, a prelude to an actual infiltration, but just over the border into Colombia, he and Stonebridge had stumbled onto a surprisingly well-armed, well-trained patrol exactly where they hadn't expected one. From there they'd brought the whole damn hornet's nest down on themselves. Richmond, Locke, and the rest of ops ended up going one way, he and Stonebridge the other, and their coms went down about 30 minutes in. Most likely Richmond had to destroy them when she'd evacuated from their forward operations base. Damien's satphone stopped a bullet at some point, and neither of them knew what the fuck had happened to Michael's.

Through pure dumb luck as they blew through some shithole of a barrio on the outskirts of Barquisimeto, with El Avispón's men hard on their tails, Damien ran into Peter Quinn -- a CIA assassin he had worked with back in his Delta Force days -- by way of accidentally steamrolling through the middle of Quinn's mission. In order to save his own life, Quinn threw them in his Jeep and drove them -- phone in one hand, pistol in the other, Stonebridge bleeding all over the backseat -- straight to this half-built skyscraper in downtown Caracas that the locals called The Tower of David. He roared to the top of what seemed like a never ending parking garage, where he turned them over to El Niño, gave El Niño a fat shrink-wrapped brick of cash, and said to "keep a lid on them until I get back, or until Carrie sends somebody."

El Niño grumbled saying that he'd balanced his debt with Carrie last year, to which Quinn muttered, "Yeah, tell me about it" under his breath before continuing, "I'm paying you for two weeks of protection. _Two weeks_." 

El Niño's mouth curled like he'd bitten into a lemon, but he hefted the brick of cash as his hard black eyes roved over them. "Two weeks. Tops." He practically spat the last word.

As much as he hated being cooped up in this 12x12 higgly-piggly-built room in the world's tallest squat, Damien had to admit that El Niño knew his shit and it was pretty fucking clear that he and his crew ran the place. El Avispón might be tearing Caracas apart looking for them, but so far those locals who lived in the Tower and had seen El Niño come in with two gringos in the middle of the night knew better than to speak about it. If El Niño was holding some people in a room on one of the non-inhabited floors of the Tower, then that was El Niño's business and mind your own. His vatos had stripped them down at gunpoint, giving them only their undershirts and undershorts back. "You won't need them. It doesn't get cold here," El Niño replied when Damien asked about the rest of their clothes.

Though he clearly wasn't happy about having them in the Tower, El Niño brought Dr. Graham, as well as the flat of juice and bottle of Tylenol the doctor ordered. Two meals and a 4 liter bottle of water arrived every day, and they splashed what they didn't drink on their faces and armpits. The shit bucket got emptied when food arrived. When Damien asked, he got them a toothpaste and a toothbrush. Singular. Well, there were worse people to swap spit with (in a manner of speaking) than Stonebrain.

Damien didn't think about escaping … much. From what he could tell, they didn't have a guard right outside the door 24-7; they didn't need to. Two barefoot white guys in wifebeaters and undershorts probably wouldn't get very far in this building, and since they towered over every man they'd seen so far, it would've been pointless to try and overpower somebody and take his clothes.

God, he hoped Quinn was alive and good to his word, and that help was on the way as soon as things died down, because that brick of cash had bought them two weeks in El Niño's idea of a bed and breakfast and not a moment more.

~oo(0)oo~

"Boredom's going to kill me," Damien groaned when the third meal in a row of beans and plantains arrived.

"We've certainly had worse fare," Stonebridge replied. Two nights of bedrest meant he no longer looked as pale and drawn, but something about his color was still off.

"I wasn't talking about the food -- which is quite tasty by the way --" he added for the benefit of the guards in case they understood, as he picked up the plates, "I mean I'm dying for a deck of cards or a checkerboard, or _something_. The view up here is fantastic, but I can only stare out the window for so long."

"Me, I thought you'd be dying for a smoke."

Damien froze. "Oh, Stonebridge, I am so beyond dying for a smoke, I don't even have words. I'm …" inspiration struck, "I'm dying for a smoke the way you're dying for a cup of tea."

"That _is_ dire."

"Actually, if we don't get something caffeinated soon, I'm thinking we're both going to have one hell of a headache." He intercepted the guard just before he left the room. "Café, por favor?"

The guard looked at Damien for a moment before nodding and replying, "Si, posiblemente."

"Gracias. Muchas gracias." When the door shut, he turned to Michael and said, "Sorry mate, don't know how to ask for tea in Spanish, and I'm thinking cervezas are out of the question." He handed a plate to him, "We gotta get you up and walking soon or you'll stiffen like a motherfucker."

"Eh?" Michael picked at his food. Last night he'd tucked right in.

"Stonehead --"

"Yeah?"

"Don't make me tell you to eat your peas."

"I'm not that hungry."

Damien stopped and studied him, noting the glassy sheen to Michael's eyes. Fuck. That's what he'd seen but not _seen_ earlier. Michael had a fever. He reached out and put a hand on Michael's forehead. Yup. Definitely too warm. "Time for you to have some extra Tylenol, buddy. That's a fever. You got the chills?"

"Some."

Damien grabbed the bottle of Tylenol and shook out two capsules. "Here you go, Mikey." He took Michael's plate away and handed him a bottle of juice. "My mom always said to feed a cold and starve a fever."

Stonebridge smiled a little crookedly. "There's one good thing about being laid up in here."

"Really? What's that?"

"None of that crap daytime telly."

~oo(0)oo~

The guard arrived back about 15 minutes later with a thermos of coffee and a small box of milk -- the kind that could sit on a shelf for a few months before getting packed in some kid's lunch box. Both Damien and Michael were used to drinking coffee black in the field, but hell yes, Damien took it with milk and sugar whenever he could get it. 

"Coffee, mate?" he asked.

Michael's shot him a look that said, "Did you really just ask me that?"

"Right-o." He cracked open the thermos and inhaled deeply. This was probably the cheapest coffee in the store, but damn, it smelled fan-fucking-tastic. He added a generous splash of milk and handed the cup to Michael. "Here you go, Stoneground. I don't care what the docs say. In my experience, coffee is a little bit like whiskey. It cures a lot of ills, and if it doesn't, it makes you mind them less."

Michael smiled wanly back at him as he took the cup of coffee. "I read that caffeine also helps the body metabolize paracetamol."

 _And zero isn't just a number, it's a concept -- thank you, Professor Stonebridge._ Damien poured a large slug of milk into his cup and added coffee to it. "Like I was saying, it's good stuff -- even if it's not whiskey." He took several gulps and sighed contentedly. "But, sick or not, we gotta get you up and walking a bit, get the sap flowing."

Michael moaned and groaned and leaned heavily on him as they completed two shaky circuits of the room. "Thanks, man," he said as they sat down side by side on the mattress. "I feel like shit, but yeah, I was starting to put down some roots. Get me up again in a few hours."

~oo(0)oo~

When the evening meal came, not beans and plantains this time, but chicken soup with rice and cilantro, Damien asked for Dr. Graham. The Tylenol had put a dent in Michael's fever, and though Michael's wound looked okay and didn't smell bad when Damien peeked under the bandage, at the end of the day, Damien wasn't anywhere near being a doctor, and though he was creepy as fuck, Dr. Graham was.

The verdict? "Hell if I know. Some jungle fever." Dr. Graham shrugged. "It's not Malaria, and his wound hasn't gone septic -- we'd see other signs."

"Then what --?"

"I. Don't. Know." Dr. Graham replied, biting off the words. "Look, " he began in neutral voice, "it's not the flu, it's not Dengue. People sometimes just get sick, you know." His eyes flicked between Michael in his bed and Damien standing before him, "Especially people who have been under a lot of trauma and stress."

In spite of everything, Michael rolled his eyes and guffawed. "Yeah, we've had a double helping of that."

Damien dragged his hands over his face, stubble chafing his fingers, and blew out a long, frustrated breath. "So, what do I do?"

"Keep him drinking -- I'll see if I can't get a cooler of ice up in here -- and if he becomes delirious wet him down and call for me."

"So, keep doing what I've been doing."

"Yes."

~oo(0)oo~

"You can't say it's all bad up in here," Michael said a few minutes later as he finished the broth from the soup. "I mean, when's the last time either of us had a housecall doctor?"

~oo(0)oo~

Damien shifted, trying to find a comfortable position so he could fall back asleep -- Michael got the mattress, period -- he took a deep breath, blew it out, and came to the realization that he was so fucking over the smell of cement. When they finally got out of here, he was going to sleep for a straight week, because during the past week, at best, he got three hours at a go before some ache or pain woke him up and he had to shift around until he found some spot that ached less than the others and only then could he drop back into sleep.

(Worrying about Michael didn't help him sleep, either.)

"Damien?" Michael whispered.

That got his immediate attention because "Damien," not "Scott," or "Mate."

"Yeah? Did I wake you? 'Cause sorry if --"

"No," Michael replied, voice soft and low. "Can't sleep."

He rolled and looked at Michael. One of the problems with the room was it never really got dark at night. On a clear night like tonight, they had the light of an almost full moon on top of the city lights. It was almost bright enough to read by. Damien would've killed for some blinds or curtains.

Almost bright enough to read by meant more than bright enough to pick up the even glassier sheen of Michael's eyes and the flush across his face and chest. _Fuck. He must be burning up._

Damien forced his stiff limbs into motion, half stumbling, half crawling to Michael. He clapped a hand to his head. _Shit._ "We gotta get some more pills and fluids in you, man."

Michael caught his hand as he pulled it away, and when his eyes met Damien's, the flare of heat in them had nothing to do with fever.

Damien wanted to say something, _tried_ to say something, but his mouth had suddenly become as dry as the Sahara. He waited that extra moment for Michael to pull his hand back, or turn away and blush, but, bold as brass, Michael's eyes locked with his, and … Damien felt the heat in his own answering stare.

Michael shifted, leaning in a fraction, looking as if he planned to speak or kiss him or something -- and Damien jolted back, pulling his hand away. "I'll get you that juice and Tylenol, Stoneburner."

He could swear Michael _leered_ at him as he stumbled away from the bed.

Thrusting the bottle of tamarind juice at Michael, he commanded, "Drink," and Michael took it, his eyes never once leaving Damien's as he gulped it down. A bold challenge. 

(And it didn't help that the sight of Michael's adam's apple bobbing up in down seemed positively obscene for some reason. _Damn, I need to get laid if I'm this turned on by Michael drinking a bottle of juice_.)

"You didn't leave any to wash the pills down, Stonehead." Damien held two capsules out.

"I don't want paracetamol," Michael replied in a low and gentle tone, the voice of reason as if to a child. "I want you."

"You're too funny, Stonebrain. Now be a good boy, take the damn pills, roll over, and go to sleep because you are burning up."

"You want it too."

"Where the fuck is stiff-upper-lip-Stonebridge, and what did you do with him?" Damien couldn't entirely stop a note somewhere between exasperation and desperation from creeping into his voice. "Next, you'll be telling me you're seeing pink elephants and shit." He thrust the capsules into Michael's face.

Michael shook his head. "I'm not hallucinating. I'm perfectly aware of where we are and what's going on." His eyes raked the length of Damien's body, pausing at the pronounced bulge in his jockey shorts. "Perfectly. Aware."

_Shit. Fuck. Piss. Damn._

"Then what --?!" Damien hissed, exasperated, careful to keep his volume in check. No point in attracting a guard, or waking him up, even if he didn't speak English.

Michael's eyes flicked up to Damien's and that's when it hit him. He had heard about this, but considered it to be some sort of old wives' tale. "You get -- fevers make you horny." The words tumbled out of his mouth.

And dammit all if Michael didn't look insufferably smug. "Beyond your wildest Viagra dreams." 

"Um … That's … " Damien groped for words.

Michael's voice dropped to a low, throaty growl that sent shivers up his spine. "We wouldn't be having this convo if you didn't want it, too. I can see it in your eyes --" his eyes flicked back down to the swollen length straining in Damien's jockeys "and in other places, too." 

A million different questions crashed through Damien's mind. One way or another they all boiled down to _why now_? 

He stopped himself on the brink of saying that, though, because really, why _not_ now? 

They were both single.

They weren't breaking any regs.

They had saved each other too many times to count. 

They had seen the best and the worst and everything in between from each other.

They faced death on a regular basis -- shit, they had a 50-50 chance of making it out of this place alive -- and sex made you feel alive. Made you forget that you walked through the world just one bullet away from having both feet in the grave.

And, like liquor, sex cured a lot of aches and pains, or at least made you mind them a lot less, and Michael certainly had enough aches and pains right now.

Damien smiled at that last thought. 

That fucking door could get kicked in at any moment, and .... But that was no way to go through life -- always afraid, always thinking about what maybe _might_ happen.

It's oh-dark-thirty.

They'd have to raise one hell of a commotion to get that door opened.

He heard himself say, "You haven't bathed in several days, Stinkbridge. I'm ripe as fuck, too." But he had to admit weakness in that one, because the two of them had smelled like an old gym sock on more than one occasion out in the field, and it had never stopped them from getting up close and personal to get a job done.

"This isn't smart, getting involved with somebody from work." Damien wanted to kick himself after that line, because he had an ongoing "friends with benefits" thing with Richmond, and work hadn't stopped Michael from getting involved with Kate Marshall in the past. And none of it had hindered anybody's effectiveness in the field.

He took a deep breath and laid it all on the line. "I'm shit at relationships, Michael, you know that."

"We're sharing a toothbrush right now," Michael said. "And even if we weren't, we're already in a relationship."

 _Fuck._ Damien screwed his eyes shut and buried his face in his hands. From the moment Michael made his first move, he realized he wanted this. Wanted this so badly it frightened him. His dick had gone full throttle in an instant. His heart ached for it. His brain … well, brains always over-thought things and had pesky questions and hangups. 

Half of the reason he didn't do relationships is that finding a woman -- finding _anyone_ \-- who understood what this life _meant_ , what it _demanded_ of you, what it _took_ from you, and why you would still _want_ to do it? Well, those people didn't grow on trees, and Damien had already nuked one relationship from orbit, and saw no reason to repeat the exercise. Hell, he'd had a front row seat to the same stresses tearing away at Michael's relationship with Kerry.

Damien opened his eyes to Michael's searing blue gaze. "I'm in," he said. Leaning in close, he kissed Michael, hard. Michael kissed back just like Damien thought he would -- with precision and a ruthless efficiency. A little part of his brain was bemused about Michael's being so utterly competent at everything he did, up to and including kissing another man. The mutual beard-burn from several days of not being able to shave just added spice "All in," he murmured when they broke for air.

Damien's hands caught the hem of Michael's shirt and lifted, pulling the stained and reeking garment up and over his head. Michael laid back then, eyes slitted, arms trailing over the mattress, as Damien studied him, and though he had seen Michael in almost every state of undress, that wasn't the same as _seeing_ him. 

_Shit. Even after days spent sick in bed you could still grate cheese on those abs._

"Is there a problem?" Michael asked after Damien raked his eyes over his torso yet again.

Damien shook his head. "No, buddy, just enjoying the view."

Michael reached out and tugged at the end of Damien's wifebeater. "Speaking of which …"

Damien almost tore it in his haste to get it off and sent it flying somewhere in the general area of the window. Michael smiled up at him, clearly liking the lay of the land, before reaching out and trailing his fever-hot hands down the sides of Damien's chest and torso before slipping his fingertips under the elastic waistband of Damien's jockeys and sliding them back and forth, the sensation making Damien shiver as his nipples turned to stiff peaks. "These have to go."

Standing up, Damien sent his shorts to his ankles without any preamble and stepped out of them, causing Michael's breath to catch at the sight of his cock. But there would be more time for show and tell later, squatting down next to the mattress, Damien reached over and tugged at the Michael's waistband, "I showed you mine, now you show me yours."

As fond as he was of the perfection of his own cock, Damien had to admit that Michael had a damn fine one rising out of the bramble of curls at its base. Straight, long, hard, vivid rose-red, and uncut. 

"I've always wondered something about you turtlenecks," he said. Taking Michael's foreskin between thumb and forefinger, he gently worked it up and down several times in rapid succession.

Instant reaction. Michael gave a choked off cry, his hips spasmed, and his cock, already wet and eager, gave a fresh spurt of precome.

"And did you find out what you wanted to know?" Michael asked when he got his breathing back under enough control.

"Yep," Damien replied as he moved to straddle Michael's thighs. "Fun sex toy." He inched up, bringing their cocks into rough alignment and swatted Michael's hand away when it reached for Damien's own wet and eager dick. "No, you're sick. Mustn't exert yourself too much. Just lie back and think of England." He rocked his hips, getting the position juuust right before wrapping his fist around both their cocks. Ignoring Michael's quickly indrawn breath, he continued, "Like I was saying, fun sex toy --" he dragged his fist slowly up, vibing on the way that Michael groaned at the stimulation, the sound feeding right back into micro shivers racing up his own spine, "which I fully intend to take advantage of --" brisk downstroke, making his eyes roll up because it felt so damn fucking good, "the next time we have showers and a real bed to romp around in."

"I can't believe -- god Damien, just like that -- that you've never seen an uncut dick."

"Pay attention, Mikey," Damien said, pausing to get his full attention. "I've seen plenty of turtlenecks just like yours." He began a loose-fingered slow pumping, because if he went as hard and fast as he wanted? He doubted he would last more than five good strokes, Michael, too. "Seen, yes. Handled …" he groaned as Michael's cock throbbed against his fingers, spurting more precome, "Handled in the field? No."

Michael sat up to his elbows at that. "What?! You mean you and John Porter never --"

 _Wiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?!_ It was almost enough to make Damien stop everything. "People thought _Porter_ and I --?! What the hell?!" He shook his head. "What the hell gave them _that_ idea?" He gave a slight twist on the upstroke.

Michael responded with a full body twitch. "Well, it was --"

Damien made a cut the chatter motion with his free hand. "Can it, Mikey. I don't even want to know. Besides --" he gave three hard strokes that laid Michael flat on his back again and had the both of them seeing stars, because it felt so good. "I'm in the middle of something else right now. Don't need any more distractions." 

And with that he set to fisting their cocks as hard and fast as he could.

~oo(0)oo~

He was wet, almost like he'd fallen asleep in a shower or something. No, it smelled salty, but not like the sea ….

The last thing his sleep fogged brain remembered was shooting so hard he saw acid-trip colors as he collapsed against the broiling heat of Michael's heaving, come-slick chest before he half-rolled, half slid to the side, meaning to get up and wipe them down with the least dirty corner of the sheet or something, but he just needed to take a moment to ….

Shit. He was laying face down, half on top of Michael. Damien cracked a bleary eye open and from the light coming in through the window, he estimated that breakfast would be here in about 30 minutes. He rolled off and sat up.

Michael lay covered in sweat -- he couldn't have been wetter if somebody had drenched him with a bucket of water -- but his breathing was regular and his skin had returned to its normal color. Damien gently reached out and touched him. Warm. Not hot.

 _Oh thank god_. His fever had finally broken.

Damien nudged him, causing him to stir slightly. "Hey buddy," he said, voice low and throaty, "you need to wake up." He scanned the room looking for something, _anything_ that wasn't their clothes, that they could use to dry themselves off with. "Food should be here soon. We need to get cleaned up and get our skivvies back on." 

With a loud groan Michael rolled off the bed and shakily climbed to his feet. "I feel --."

"Like you were ridden hard and put away wet?"

Michael rolled his eyes. "Parched."

Damien handed him the top sheet from the bed. It was pretty evenly damp, but it was all they had. "Here, get yourself cleaned up a bit, and I'll crack open some water."

Michael handed him the sheet and Damien found a not too bad corner and used that to swipe at the worst of the wet on his body before tossing the sheet aside. El Niño would have to give them a new one because if that thing dried without being washed it would be so board stiff with salt it could be used to clobber somebody.

"What I wouldn't give for a razor." Michael scratched at the scruff on his face.

~oo(0)oo~

From the look on the guard's face when he opened the door, the room must have smelled like herd of goats rutting in a week old sweat sock.

It got them a visit from both El Niño and Dr. Graham, and, doctor's orders, it got them a big bucket of water, a bar of soap, and a fresh pair of wash faded sheets for the mattress. 

They dived for the soap and bucket as soon as they were delivered. 

"I have never been so happy to have a PTA bath in my life." Michael splashed water on his armpits.

"Ever have one with a 'happy ending'?" Damien asked. 

Michael blushed furiously, but managed to keep his voice cool as he replied, "Not yet."

~oo(0)oo~

"Anything from Quinn?" Michael asked, as Damien sat at the window, gazing at the streets below.

"Nope," Damien replied. Something about the scene tingled his spider-sense for want of a better word. "Hey, Stonebridge, come take a look at this and tell me what you think."

Michael frowned as his eyes scanned the vista. "Yeah, I don't like it, either. It's --"

"Too quiet." Realization hit Damien like a bucket of cold water. "There's traffic, cars are moving, but not enough, and they're --"

"Not moving the right way," Michael finished. "You've looked out this window more than I have. What kinds of cars do you usually see?"

"There's too many fucking jeeps and SUVs." Damien groaned and pressed his head against the glass. "What I wouldn't give right now for a pair of binoculars." He paused and added, "Or that high power scope on my rifle. And my rifle."

Michael scratched idly at his beard. "I guess it is possible that it could be for something else entirely. We're probably not the only interesting people in this building."

 _Prepare for the worst. That way all your surprises will be pleasant._ Damien shrugged. "It's a _possibility_."

But neither of them really believed that.

~oo(0)oo~

Fifteen minutes after midnight, the door banged open. In strode Peter Quinn, arms filled with the clothing and gear El Niño and his men had taken from them upon arrival. "Get dressed. Our ride gets here in about 15 minutes. I managed to slip by the fuckers outside, but they won't be long behind me." He hooked a com link over his ear. "Sorry this took so long, but finding and coordinating with Section 20 took a little longer than expected."

"What's going on?" Damien indicated the window. He frowned at his muddy, blood-stained fatigues. Michael's were even worse; he was lucky to be alive, given the blood that he'd lost.

"You've been made." Quinn stated matter-of-factly. Looking at Michael, he continued, "How are you? Because there's a shitload of stairs ahead of you. The only way out is up."

"I can manage," Michael replied stiffly.

"Good. El Niño and his guys are going to delay them as long as they can, but there's no way that he and his can take on El Avispón. Besides, it's not his fight."

As soon as they got dressed and readied their rifles, Quinn handed them headsets. 

Richmond was on the line. Damien was never so happy to hear her clipping out instructions over the roar of a helicopter in his life.

Before they exited the room, Quinn's cell phone buzzed. "He bought us as much time as he could, but they're now on the 10th floor. El Niño thinks the stairs going up to the roof will be clear, but be prepared, just in case."

~oo(0)oo~

Above the inhabited floors, they didn't bother to light the stairwells -- why bother for something that people didn't need? Their flashlights revealed bugs, spiders, empty bottles, a few used condoms, mold in dank corners, and plenty of cement dust. Damien wondered how many of El Avispón's men had lights, and laughed as he thought about them stumbling around trying to climb stairs in pitch blackness.

Michael made it up seven of the 15 floors before the strain of the exertion caused his legs to buckle. Damien held out his hand for Michael's rucksack, and it said everything about his exhaustion that Michael handed it over without protest.

That got them three more flights, but by the time they hit the landing on the 40th floor, Michael shook with fatigue. Damien held out his hand for Michael's rifle. "I'd carry you, but you're heavy, even if you are my brother." That won him a wan smile.

"Do you think they know we're going up?" Michael asked in between gasps for air. "That we're not just trying to hide out and sneak back down?"

"I doubt it," Quinn said. "That's why Richmond is holding off as long as possible. As soon as she lands on the helipad, we'll start taking small arms fire. It would be better if the moon wasn't so full."

Michael ended up crawling up the last five flights of stairs. Damien and Quinn would have carried him, but the stairwell was too narrow for three abreast. When they got to the rooftop at last, Michael slung an arm over both their shoulders and half-walked while they half-dragged him across to the helipad.

They started taking a little small arms fire as soon the men on the ground realized how their quarry was escaping. But this high up? They might as well have been shooting spitballs.

~oo(0)oo~

They stood on the rooftop of the SIS building, watching the boats on the Thames. Epic debriefing had been epic.

"I was hoping for some R&R," Damien groaned, flicking his cigarette away. Brass was giving them 96 hours of leave -- big whoop.

Michael sighed. "A man can dream."

"Locke say anything to you about this next mission?"

"Other than than 'I hope you like Pad Thai', no."

"That's more than he told me." Damien shrugged. 

"For the record, I don't, you know -- like Pad Thai."

"Wait. What?! Who the fuck doesn't like Pad Thai?"

"Me. I prefer Pad Se Ew."

Damien shook his head. "That's okay, Stonebrain. There are worse character flaws. As long as you like Singha beer, we can make this relationship work."


End file.
